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Agreed John, you started this thread in response to slanderous statements made about our convention. Which is convention related. When a poster creates a thread in vacuumland the poster is given a set of categories. Anything convention related has always been set up to be posted in the vintage section. Try creating a new thread you will see the categories/tags.
 
@luxlife @rivstg1 I agree with you there should definitely be a separate place to post this sort of thing.
I believe though it's intentionally put in the vintage section to hide it away from less serious collectors.
There also appears to be some sort of secret $15 newsletter you can sign up for.
This is really mind-blowing to me as somebody who makes free 4K detailed vacuum videos for everybody to see.
 
It's a not secret. And believe it or not some collectors still like printed newsletters and the concept of an organized club. Just like many collectors still collect vacuum literature. Not to sound rude or hateful I think it would really be beneficial to read past posts in context before making a judgment.

A newsletter is not for everybody and we are not saying it is. If another collector doesn't want to participate no one is being forced. We are all free to make our own choices.


http://www.vacuumcleanercollectorsclub.org/membership/
 
So-O-O MANY Questions

I simply want to understand what this fake looking dispute is.

Apparently, there is some club called VCCC, which does not have any legitimate listing on line, has no website of their own, are not connected to a legit Cancer Center with the initials of VCCC, and was apparently combined with Vacland "club" at some point?

1. What?

2. Is it implied that all the members of the Vacland are the actual Vacland "club"?

3. Where does one get information about "Vccc"?

4. What does the VCCC do? Who is it intended for? Can anyone legit say?

5. If members of "vccc" are SO threatened by those from " the other side " What are you doing here?

6. How was the VCCC and vacland at one time the same thing and then decided to separate?

7. Do you realize, back in the day, once a year conventions where people had to travel to and socialize..... blah, blah, blah, was necessary, but now we have the internet. I hope we realize that sites like Vacland are a continuous ongoing convention.

8. The vccc does not sound like it consists of, or at least is being lead by, the nicest of people.

9. Anyone familiar with an old group on Yahoo for Vacuums? Any affiliation?

10. I need a side by side comparison between vccc and ....whatever the competition is so I can CLEARLY decide what side I'm going to be on. War is clearly a brewing between the Vccc and the rest of the world. I need the facts.

And the bigger question:

Why is there a separate Vacuum website from Automaticwasher? This Vintage vacuum forum and perhaps the kids forum could easily be moved to the automaticwasher website and save on administrative chores.

The rest is just a repeat: the classifieds, the members only forum, the miscl (which sees very little traffic) It's the same people, the same drama. Slightly different variant of MOSTLY anally retentive, gay, OCD and Asperger afflicted people the likes of which i'm part of.

Collecting Vintage appliances or collecting ANYTHING is not as unusual as it once was. The internet has allowed a lot of growth and understanding in the last twenty years. This site could go further but needs some improvements and consolidations, imo.

gregvacs28-2020011319293102928_1.png
 
Happy 37th anniversary V.C.C.C.

The Vacuum Cleaner Collector's club was founded on January 2nd, 1983 by John Lucia and Alex Taber. It was the very first group of members who were known to collect vacuum cleaners, and the only form of communication was a newsletter.

As years passed meetings were held, first in Chesterton, Indiana in 1985, and then for the next 12 years in Naperville, Illinois.

In time the club acquired a forum for its membership until it was decided that it would be better if it merged with Vacuumland.

I do not know the logistics of all this, I only know the first 12 years of the V.C.C.C.

[this post was last edited: 1/13/2020-21:31]

caligula-2020011320363004678_1.jpg
 
The first and ONLY mascot of the V.C.C.C.

The cat shown here is Caligula, and he was the mascot for the Vacuum Cleaner Collector's Club. This picture dates back to 1986 around the time the first meeting was held in my home in Naperville, Illinois.

In May of 1995, I retired from the club, relocated to San Diego, California, and am no longer associated with the management. But, the V.C.C.C. was the first to provide information to the members and was designed to be a teaching club and resource center. Interestingly, that is exactly what Vacuumland is today.

I leave it to John Long to fill in the blanks.

Alex Taber.

caligula-2020011320511904250_1.jpg
 
Uh

Nobody is posting anything in any forum.
I can understand each point.
I'm just saying he is contributing to a board with little or no posting from almost everyone.
I don't mind it as it's something with substance.
We sit back cast stones yet we only criticize convention posts but do not post anything on any topic.
I'm not taking sides. I'm saying is maybe if we stop worrying about someone else when you could contribute to the board posting other topics.
If you sit back and don't converse on topics and judge contribute not complain.
It's just how I live my life. If I'm not doing anything to make it better stop complaining. If you argue it is negative energy that could be used in a positive manner. If you don't like it don't read it do something good with your time.
Life is too short to waste negative energy.
We all like vacuuming let's collaborate not retaliate.
Les
 
Greg,

I really don't know how to answer some of your questions without naming names and I would rather not do that. Alex (Caligula) knows a great deal of club information since he is one of the founding members. When I first joined the V.C.C.C in 2009, Vacuumland was part of the club benefits because VacuumLand was owned by us. Then in 2013, the V.C.C.C board at the time decided to separate from VacuumLand. I'd rather not go into the specifics of that either and in reality those are past events. Yes we do have a website (see link below) we could build a forum of our own. One of the club member's partners is a website designer. If we did have a dedicated forum for ourselves it would not have the recognition that VacuumLand does. I hope this answers some of your questions. Our website has more information about the V.C.C.C.

http://www.vacuumcleanercollectorsclub.org/
 
Thank you Kenny.

The Vacuum Cleaner Collector's Club has a rich history, and has its roots with the Hoover Historical Center, the actual date goes back to September of 1980.

The reason for the club was to dispel the put-down's of family and friends of a young collector, and the off-putting question "you collect what?" The club was designed to put adults who had private collections, but no way to research a given brand, model, or get patent information together. Those original members were starving for the history that companies like Electrolux would not give. The result was the Newsletter in which the assorted back stories were told. We also shared phone calls and learned from each other.

Because we were a small group of guys into vacuum cleaners we never thought it would grow, nor did we see any reason to register the club.

Things changed in November of 1984 when a member contacted me about a gathering of the membership, result the first meeting in my mom's family room in Chesterton, Indiana. Again, we saw no need to incorporate, as we were still too small. But later that year I relocated to Naperville, Illinois, made that house club headquarters and my own collection became the club museum.

The Newsletter was a 3-6 page collection of articles, history of a given company, and a classified section. I was the one who typed, edited, and mailed each issue. Not bad when it was 5 or 10 members, but by 1993 it was becoming the tail that wagged the dog, and by May of 95 I was ready to retire.

I have no idea how, or when the little club John Lucia and I formed went global, there was a forum, but I had no say in any of it, nor do I have any say now. I was merely the one who with John Lucia, got the ball rolling.

And again I say, for further questions I defer to John Long as he knows far more about the merging with Vacuumland than I do.

Alex Taber.[this post was last edited: 1/13/2020-23:00]
 
Wow! OK, let's clear up some even more misconceptions

WHY all these things?
Well.......
There are TWO forums, because Robert, the webmaster, is the one who started and has a passion for the "washers", thus, Vacuums AND laundry machines.
Yes, were were all one. Robert decided to "go it alone". We separated, BUT, The VCCC has an info website, but, we are graciously still allowed to post in HERE, and, we do. For instance, in 2007, we celebrated Hoover's 100th birthday IN North Canton, Ohio, The Home of Hoover Appliances. We were joined by our members from England, Australia, etc. We were a GLOBAL club. Several members are no longer members. The reasons are described in a newsletter from 2007, (page 3). It seems some are angry, bitter, vindictive, etc. NO need to go into that here, certainly not by me. Yes, there are people who are friends with members of both groups. Totally their business.
However, if/when people say things, do things, call vacuum companies, bashing The VCCC, these things should not be tolerated. Does anyone disagree with that?
But, there's more to that
So, I hope this clears up some of this. Alex Taber and John Lucia started The VCCC, 37 years ago.It is still going strong, although it has changed, grown, morphed, etc through the years, and should.
 
Sex happens... get over it!

Not sure what your implying about what happened years ago. So without having any details I can add my 2 cents saying that if you get a bunch of men most of whom are gay and have a lot in common into a Room, there's bound to be some sexual tension. Are you saying that people should just ignore that? For propriety?  I'm 99% sure that at most conventions, straight or gay, some people hook up. I'm quite disgusted how you are creating Animosity between groups of people who just want to enjoy their vacuums and live their lives. I will miss this group, it was my 1st outlet to find people who had similar vacuum interests, but as a prior post mentioned there is a lot of snobbery, and clique-ish behavior, and I don't find it a comfortable place anymore.


I wont be renewing my membership next year.  
 
Well...

You’ve made great strides with the whole “passive-aggressive” thing....
Now you just need to perfect the concealment of your your “transparency”. I’m sorry to inform you, but it’s lacking....
Most of it is not really your fault anymore, because you’ve been figured out.
 
As soon as you became acquainted with Tom A, your agenda practically wrote itself. It’s perfectly clear that you need this rivalry more than anyone. Did you ever consider that if you’re the first to stand down, it could all go away?? Have you ever considered being the first to NOT use an incindiary remark? The other side will typically not respond unless there’s been a particular remark made first. This conflict predates YOU. I’m sorry to tell you this. Bad blood is usually old blood and you arrived late to the party, so get over it and stop trying to prolong the fray.

I first joined VCCC and VacuumLand 2 Years before you and this was happening at the time. I still remember the very first time I ever posted to Tom Gasko on VacuumLand and I could barely get a response from him because the “other” Tom and the “Illinois Organist” were tag-teaming with verbal aggression on a topic thread that didn’t even include them!

Did you really think you were clever enough to decide to promote this ancient conflict???
It was decided for you, because you were convenient, available, and because you were a willing vessel. And THAT, makes you a minion....
 
You know what I think?

I think y'all need a moderator, who can... oh, I dunno... moderate? Because like. Seriously guys, nothing actually happened in this thread to warrant all this drama. Looks to me like somebody made a stupid offhand comment (that was immediately apologized for!) and everyone else got upset for various reasons, and they all think that they're right and everyone else is wrong. And there's no authority figure present to point that out and set the record straight, so you get a couple of members ragequitting and a lot of leftover underlying tensions for no good reason at all! If this was my forum, my mods would've shut down this thread so fast.

Consider getting moderators.
 
Well now I’m going to chime in...

I believe it was my post from the past mentioning the snobbery and clique-like behavior. It could be a different post, but I do know that I have made such a post in the past.

There’s a lot of rivalry on here and it shows. It’s uncomfortable and unwelcoming. Not at all the group it was when I joined (non-paid member). I was considering becoming a paid member, but in my personal opinion, paying to have a full membership is only (indirectly) encouraging such behavior to continue.

As far as conventions go, I’ve never been able to attend one, but I imagine they (at least the large ones) are hosted in hotels. I cannot imagine for the life of me anyone doing the dirty during the actual convention, as the hotel would never allow such a thing. If people meet each other and have a liking towards one another, and after convention events have ended they decide to go back to a hotel room that I expect they have paid for with their own money, and they decide to engage in sexual activity, or any activity, it’s on them and it’s nobody else’s business.

I just don’t see the point of this thread.

It’s disappointing to see so much rivalry. I’ll bet that the people who have an axe to grind probably have much more in common with each other than they think.
 
Wow! OK.........................................

First, John Pecan Tree.why do you continually remove your posts? Just curious. I usually miss them--except for that last one.
Some parts of what you said are absolutely correct. It seems I did "arrive at the party late". I do NOT think, however, that I'm clever.I also do NOT think I'm above anyone, at all. I'm also, not stupid. I've taught students from age 5 to college, all subjects, all levels. I've been a 'model' for two universities (in their education departments). I've also taught blind children. So, I've been around the block, a few times. I've been hired to troubleshoot, edit, correct college reports, etc. I'm paid to be smart.... not cocky. I've also taught at one of the most prestigious music schools in the nation. THEY were cocky.
Yes, I WAS a target here, I was easy, convenient, etc. I've always said, "I simply want nothing to do with certain people, and will NOT respond to them. Certain people have said everything under the sun...causing even a few to 'turn '. It's OK. There is NOTHING MORE that could possible be said to me, or about me that could upset me any more. All it really does is 'showcase' one's ignorance and maybe,even, stupidity.
I'm not putting myself in battle lines of rivalries, etc. I know what I know...and, it's a lot.
I don't even "collect sweepers". I have a passion and respect for all things to do with The Hoover Company, thus, I have a collection of vacuums, as well.
So, I thank Robert for allowing these discussions. I thank so many of you for your support. I'm proud to be a member of The VCCC, even a board member. I'll welcome most into my home, very few exceptions. And, I welcome people to my home during the 2021 VCCC convention, held in Scranton, PA.
So, let's move on, shall we? And, indulge our passion for vacuums.
John Long.. (for clarity).[this post was last edited: 1/15/2020-13:32]
 
Very well put!!!

And I, for one, would be very sad to see you leave this forum. While I do collect other brands of vintage vacuums besides Hoover I consider you a treasure trove of information regarding Hoovers and the once-great company in Canton, Ohio. You yourself, Tom Gasko, Charles Lester (though I haven't seen him on here much lately) are what make this forum "tick." I was sorry to see Tom Anderson go, and shenanigans like these are what drive people away. I'm sure the conventions are conducted in a respectful manner and whatever people choose to do in their own free time behind closed doors is their business. Can't we just get back to the hobby which is vacuum cleaners pure and simple?
 
Well, thank you, very much.

I have no intentions of leaving. I'm just sorry so many had to witness such a distasteful display. There are loads of printed statements regarding past events, bannings, etc. Available for view...free of charge, even.
BUT........ I'd love to get back to our vacuums.
John
 

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